Sony Xperia

Giving justice to the cliché "small but terrible", Sony has unveiled at CES 2014 the Xperia Z1 Compact, which others might have been calling the Xperia Z1 Mini or Honami Mini. But despite the miniature size, the Xperia Z1 Compact still packs almost the same punch as Sony's larger flagship.

Sony is finally bringing its waterproof flagship smartphone to the US and it will be arriving with a new name. The Sony Xperia Z1S will soon be available on T-Mobile's catalog but we're first giving it the hands-on treatment here at CES 2014.

On the heels of a recent bout of Android 4.3 updates for Sony's Xperia lines, the WiFi-only version of its 10-inch tablet, the Xperia Tablet Z, is finally seeing its share of attention. The update comes exactly a week after the company announced the update on its official blog.

It was a few weeks earlier when Sony announced that Jelly Bean was rolling out to the Xperia Z1 and Xperia Z Ultra. Perhaps more important though, that news came with a bit of teasing about how the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update rollout for the "remaining" Sony Xperia devices was "right around the corner." Well, it looks like that day has come and Sony has announced Jelly Bean for four additional devices.

The slightly smaller version of the Xperia Z1 has arrived for those in Japan. The handset has been dubbed the Sony Xperia Z1 f and it has landed with NTT DoCoMo. There has been talk of an international version arriving as the Xperia Z1 s, but for now, we can only look towards the leaks and rumors for details of that model. Sticking with the Xperia Z1 f and we learn this handset has a smaller display size but otherwise keeps many of the same specs from the Xperia Z1.

One thing about Android apps is that there is always a chance that someone will take it to places the author didn't originally envision. Whether that's a good thing or a bad one is still undetermined, but Sony Xperia users might appreciate the fact that someone did do this for the Motion Shot camera app.

Sony isn't a stranger to offering device support under the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). We have seen several in the past, including the Xperia Tablet Z, Xperia Z smartphone and Xperia S. And as of today, it looks like another device has been added. This latest is the Xperia L. This means developers will be able to build, flash and run Kit Kat, but it also arrives as another first.

We have seen talk of the Sony Xperia Z1 Mini before, as both the Z1 F and the Z1 S. The former has been officially announced and will be available in Japan by way of NTT DoCoMo. For today though, a recently discovered FCC filing is showing the Xperia Z1 S with the codename of Anami.

Aside from giving users a more vanilla and more liberated Android experience, one of the side benefits of CyanogenMod is bringing Android to devices no manufacturer, or even Google, would dare go. In particular, the popular custom ROM has been the savior of many older devices that are relatively capable of running more recent Android versions, such as some of Sony's Xperia smartphones from 2011.

Sony may be looking into delivering Android 4.4, or at least Android 4.3, to some of its slightly older devices dating back as far as 2012, but some devices aren't so lucky. But thanks to custom Android ROMs and the persistence of some individuals, the Sony Xperia go, Xperia P, Xperia Sola, and Xperia U might soon be enjoying the latest Android version via CyanogenMod 11.